OT: If you grew up in the 50's, you'll remember some of these things from that era.

[Improviser]

Transistor radios: the first one I saw was a very nice Mitsubishi a friend had. Made by the people who made the Betty bombers and Zero fighters faced by our fathers and uncles in the Pacific a few years earlier. The first nice thing from Japan I saw after the cheap stuff from the immediate post war years. A sign that Japan was getting back on its feet.

Speaking of airplanes, I miss the distinctive sound of airliners with radial engines - read Pratt & Whitney - that has been replaced by the whine of jets, also mostly P&W. Whenever I hear an airplane, I still look up.

Not an airplane buff, but when at the beach nearby to Tweed, I enjoy the sound of the Avelo jets. I don't find it annoying and it doesn't sound harsh.

Then again, I don't hear the planes every day of the week.

 

[Jingo]

Not an airplane buff, but when at the beach nearby to Tweed, I enjoy the sound of the Avelo jets. I don't find it annoying and it doesn't sound harsh.

Then again, I don't hear the planes every day of the week.

I remember hearing Elvis sing, "Don't Be Cruel" on my brand new portable transistor radio playing fast-pitch stickball against the wall of PS 65, Queens! circa 1956

 

[Skeets]

Wasn't it: "Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed"?

Actually, it was "Contact light!" Tranquility base... came a few seconds later.

 

[CL82]

Actually, it was "Contact light!" Tranquility base... came a few seconds later.

Interesting. I didn’t know that. Apparently they also said “engine shut down” prior to “Houston Tranquility base…”
Link

 

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[Fairfield Fan]

Wasn’t great for women, either

View attachment 77583

The year I was born, 1955, Emmett Till was murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in Money, Mississippi, for whistling at a white woman. Blacks wouldn't be permitted to vote- without being murdered, that is- until ten years later.

African-Americans weren't permitted to ride at the front of interstate buses, or buses anywhere in the South, at that time. Nor could they order a hamburger in Woolworth's in the South. That would only come years later, and after many deaths.

Sandra Day O-Connor, who would become the first woman justice of the Supreme Court, graduated from Stanford Law School with high honors in 1952. But no one would employ her as an attorney.

Pretty lousy decade for a lot of people.

 

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For the BYers who watched some of these TV shows in the 1950s - which were your favorites?

• Annie Oakley
• Cisco Kid
• Cheyenne
• Davey Crockett
• Death Valley Days
• Gunsmoke
• Have Gun Will Travel
• Hopalong Cassidy
• Lone Ranger
• Roy Rogers
• Wagon Train
• other shows not listed here

 

[SoFla Steve]

This will never come back.
Remember when the TV went on the “blink”?
Parent would call the TV Repair Man.
He’d show up with this big black case that had a bazillion tubes and widgets in it.
He’d pivot the TV off of the wall, place a mirror in front of the screen so he could see what was going on from behind it-take off the back panel and work his magic.
Picture would go through all kinds of contortions- he’d reach in his case and replace what was needed.
Little by little the picture would come back.
A MIRICLE!!
TV back in business!
HALLELUJAH!!
The universe is saved!
Just in time for Soupy Sales!!!

I remember taking a brown paper bag full of our TV's tubes to the local drugstore. I'd pull out the stepstool they kept on the side so I could see over the top of their tube tester to find out which tube went bad. They looked something like this . . .

 

[SoFla Steve]

You really can find almost anything on the internet. I remember getting a Lucas McCain "The Rifleman" cowboy hat just like this one. My brother got a black Paladin hat. It came with a stick-on mustache and some "Have Gun, Will Travel" business cards.

I was jealous.